Nokia is using the unlicensed portion of the CBRS 3.5 GHz spectrum band to supply a private LTE network for a school district in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Nokia announced on Tuesday that it completed the first of two phases for the deployment. It’s working with AggreGateway, a small wireless engineering firm based in San Diego.
The network serves students in the Dos Palos Oro Loma (DPOL) school district of California. Located in the predominantly rural San Joaquin Valley, the district comprises five campuses and serves a population of 5,000 residents.
Nokia said its solution will provide internet access to the homes of 2,400 students using Nokia Private 4.9G/LTE Digital Automation Cloud (NDAC) operating in the CBRS/On-Go General Authorized Access (GAA) spectrum. Customer premises equipment (CPE) includes Nokia FastMile 4G Gateways and WiFi Beacons.
The DPOL technology team will operate its new LTE network through the centrally secure Nokia DAC Cloud monitoring application. DPOL will also provision LTE / Wi-Fi hotspots to students to be used with any standard laptop or tablet to access high-speed internet.
Nokia points out that the FCC has reported nearly 17 million school children in the U.S. lack internet access at home, creating a nationwide “homework gap” that became more pronounced during the pandemic as schools closed and distance learning became the new normal.
Just yesterday, the FCC announced it’s committing nearly $126 million in emergency connectivity fund support to connect schools, students and libraries to internet services. Since its launch last June, the FCC’s program has committed more than $4.5 billion supporting all 50 states.
“As we put a plan in place for distance learning during the pandemic we found we could only provide coverage for approximately 50% of DPOL students via commercial wireless network providers,” said Paoze Lee, technology systems director of the Dos Palos-Oro Loma school district, in a press release. “Working with Nokia and AggreGateway, we are taking the next steps to level the field and ensure every student has the same access to our learning facilities.”
Nokia has been involved in the CBRS movement since the early days. Early in the pandemic, another prominent CBRS pioneer – Google – reported seeing a lot of interest from schools looking to use CBRS to improve internet access for students. Schools can use the GAA portion without obtaining a license. And as Lee stated, getting licensed operators to provide adequate coverage has been a challenge.
RELATED: Google, Virginia Tech get ‘schooled’ on CBRS: Special Report
“Growing up in a rural small town like Dos Palos-Oro Loma, I experienced the digital divide firsthand. Being able to implement a Nokia private wireless solution for the students has been beyond rewarding,” said AggreGateway President Octavio Navarro in a statement. “The IT staff from DPOL, AggreGateway and Nokia worked seamlessly together to achieve this goal. We are excited, proud and look forward to the continued success.”
The project’s first phase was completed in November 2021 and the second phase is scheduled for completion in 2022.